How Are Your Ecommerce Sales Holding Up?

Let's take the patient's temperature

[wifi on the fly]

Anyone else seeing slow sales in ecommerce over the last week or so?

[Rugles]

Yes, but it is normal for me this time of year. It will end in a couple more weeks when the xmas rush starts.

[fiu88]

Dead with capital D since mid-last week....Today is virtually non existant sales wise...
The first and last weeks of the month have generally been the busiest times...so it should turn on tonite/tommorrow...

Noticed our search hits have been way down as well...

3:45 pm...we got our first order of the day ( we usually do 10-20)

[sharbel]

Yeah, sales have been soft for us too the last week. General traffic for us is down too. I am sure its just a temporary thing, it will bounce back

[otnot]

Be patient, Christmas sales will start in 3 weeks. Unless the consumer confidence and economy keeps going down.

[BradleyT]

Avian flu worries were giving us record breaking sales but it seems to have slowed down the past 2 weeks.

[stroudtx]

You must sell Tamiflu or 3M products...

Our sales were down last week, but rebounded this week back to normal.

Mike

[wifi on the fly]

Last week was really choppy...even though the Jagger updated did some damage, the traffic was still there. People just weren't buying. Monday was the best day this week and then dropped Tuesday and seems again slow for Wednesday :(

I know this is a yearly thing, but I just can't remember out of 5 years it ever really dropping to this low.

[BradleyT]

Yep 3M products.

[tv33]

It's not just you.

Sales have dropped by 60% after Oct 18th. This is the worst drop I've ever seen and it is seemingly unexplainable.

Not even Katrina caused such problems and I don't think there's anything in the news that would cause this. Gas prices are coming down which should also help.

What's going on?

[crak_bot]

This was my worst week ever. Traffic actually went up a little but sales tanked. I'm sort of relieved to find this thread because I was starting to worry it was me adn my site. I've added some incentives and it has not helped much so I think people are just not buying right now no matter the deal.

I think that it is the gas prices even though they are going down. It takes a few weeks for the extra costs to catch up with people, for example people buying gas on credit cards. Then another few weeks to dig out and go back to normal. I predict (fingers crossed) by mid November most people should be back to normal.

Jim

[tv33]

Yeah my overall traffic numbers were pretty normal. The people just weren't/still aren't buying. Like I said, 60% drop.

The first few days of October were also really bad, but now I'm at 10 days in a row of bad numbers. Never seen anything like it.

I just can't wait for this month to end.

[bekyed]

Yes,

Our sales are down by 50% not normal for us as Christmas starts around October 1st.
We have every offer going on the site but to no avail, we will be cutting staff hours soon if things do not pick up.
People simply arent buying.
They reckon we are heading for a bad christmas on the news and retail is definitely down, there are sales everywhere.

Bek.

[HRoth]

This month has been very strange for me. The number of sales is about half of what's normal, but the per-sale amount is much higher. Traffic is way low. I don't get it, but I decided not to worry about it as long as it works out to be enough to get by. I am concentrating on researching products to add next month.

[wifi on the fly]

Since I started this thread things have been slowly starting to gain momentum. I am starting to feel a little bit better about things. I did some research on one of our sites last year during October and now this year. Last year in October we sold 193 widgets, this year we are at 161 widgets sold for October.

I think we will all be fine. Just have good products, fast shipping and good customer service and ecommerce will live on. I hope! :)

[upside]

I've always liked to view a bar graph of my daily sales over the past 2 months. However, I found that my impression of "slow sales" can get out-of-sync with reality. The most helpful thing for me was plotting three lines over the bar graph: monthly average, 7 day simple moving average, and 2 month simple moving average. This makes it easier to spot short and long term trends. So now when I feel like it's a slow day I look at those trend lines and am reassured.

[Joop]

It's half term in the UK, i'm hoping that when the kids go back to school, parents will then start concentrating on their christmas shopping. does anyone have any stats from last year for half term?

[fiu88]

Last Oct. 104 sales..thic Oct. 206 sales...and Monday is usually our busiest day...
---We have done alot of site improvement and promo. over the year...
Proportionately, last week sucked vs. the rest of the month...

[wifi on the fly]

Extremely slow week so far...hope things look better for November. I was encouraged last week on a pickup but am back down to slow to no sales :( Where do all the shoppers go!?!

[blueskym]

Traditionally the **RETAIL** TRADE ( bricks in morter )goes in an eight year cycle and has been doing so since the 50s ........... 4 years on the way upto peak and then 4 years on the way down to low .

Ecommerce is barely 8 years old and the ONLY pattern we know is UP UPUP UP ..at least so far ** UNTIL ** july this year. Since the its been wobbling
July .. down year on year 10%
August ..down 60% ( FRIGHTING )
Sept ..worked out ok in end
OCT .. UP ..20%
Nov .. already in excess of last years figures

ANybody seen a similair pattern ( UK )

And the point of this post .. please dont worry about the dailys , worry more about the monthlys and quartlys

PAUL

[fivaxis]

September was my best month, it was crazy. Then October was a little under average, and ever since the end of October it has been dead. November has been terrible, should come around soon though.

[robjones2]

Since Nov 18th, UK sales each day have been LESS THAN HALF compared to previous 18 months average.

No changes to my adwords campaigns, no changes to my site, and traffic dropped by only 1-10%.

Cant find an explanation as yet, only guessing.

For example, was shopping in Oxford Street on saturday and was double the normal people. Is everyone spending up for Christmas presents etc? and we'll have to wait for month-end pay days for people to have more money to spend?

[bekyed]

Hi Rob,

There is a recession on the way, on GMTV yesterday they confirmed that the UK are going to watch their pennies up to xmas.
Our traffic is down from 5,500 visits per day to just over 2,000 visits.
We are showing a 60% drop in sales since September.
This is the worst for us in 7 years and we have had to let staff go.
Google has had a lot to do with it too, but the fact is people are not spending, or have no disposable income.

Bek.

[Miop]

I can't decide how much is due to pages being lost in the Jagger update and how much is due to recession. We seem to still be getting traffic, but few sales. Traffic is down to less than half this time last year so I guess Jagger has had a lot to do with it.

[RailMan]

i see sales on the way up for most of my sites and my client's sites - double what they were in july, although i expect that's mostly due to christmas - but shoppers don't seem afraid to spend ...........

[irishaff]

Hi,

I work on the UK only and i have to say im finding it slow also. My product is a bit pricy and a luxury item in a way. I put it down to Christmas coming up and people watching the pennies. I am therefore not surprised to see this thread.

David

[icedout]

today is the slowest day in sales for us in several months.

[eyeinthesky]

Black Friday effect?

[blaze]

[news.com.com...]

Let us know how your monday goes..

[HRoth]

Sure hope that article is correct. Last year, Black Thursday was a good day for me. Not this year. One thing I have noticed that was mentioned in the article--my customers do seem to shop at work during lunch and right at the end of the workday.